Sunday November 12, 2017

Forbes claims that the Xbox One X’s 4K Blu-ray drive is a bit of a mess: the problem is raised black levels when playing high dynamic range images (which are the star attraction of pretty much all 4K Blu-ray discs) into HDR-capable TVs. It has something to do with the way the Xbox One X is outputting its video, which seems to be raising the base luminance level of the entire high dynamic range image.

The issue also affects color and detail, with some tones looking washed out compared with how they look on other 4K Blu-ray decks. Some very bright shots look flared and bleached, too, and noise levels are consistently elevated rather than this issue only affecting dark scenes. Which is all exactly what you would expect to see if an image isn’t being presented with the correct luminance information.